The assembly, which comprises leaders of thought from the district, commended the president and the National Assembly for approving the establishment of the college in the state.

It said: “We believe that the selection of Ebonyi, alongside four others, was meant to ensure that states that hitherto had no federal tertiary educational institutions were accommodated in line with federal character principle.

“Despite far-reaching representations made by various groups, the FME went ahead to approve the siting of the college at Isu community in Ebonyi South, thereby making the district to have three federal educational institutions.”

The group stated that the development could worsen the already skewed distribution of federal tertiary institutions in the state, if not reversed.

According to the group, Ebonyi North may be the only senatorial district in Nigeria without a federal tertiary educational institution.

Ukraine approves national strategy for safe educational environment

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree approving the National Strategy for Building a Safe and Healthy Educational Environment in Ukrainian schools, the Ukrainian President’s website reported on Monday.

The strategy was approved “to ensure respect for the observance of the constitutional rights and freedoms of children” and to guarantee the protection of children and their rights to education.

It also sought to create a safe and healthy educationalenvironment and ramp up efforts to protect the health of the younger generation, the decree said.

C’River urges new SEB members to formulate quality educational policies

The government of Cross River has inaugurated its State Secondary Education Board, urging the members to formulate quality educational polices capable of enhancing the standard of education in the state.

Speaking to the members of the board in Calabar, the Commissioner for Quality Education, Dr Godwin Amanke, charged them to have the interest of students at heart by helping secure their future.

According to Amanke, Gov. Ben Ayade carefully selected members of the board for the job of promoting secondary education.

Finnish educational institutions concerned over foreign students’ next academic year

Finnish educational institutions have expressed concern over foreign students’ next academic year in the country as Finnish Foreign Ministry’s consular services remain closed.

Turo Kilpelainen, the CEO of LAB, a university of practical sciences that operates in cities of Lahti and Lappeenranta in southern Finland, told Finnish news agency USU on Thursday that LAB this year has some 400 non-EU students mainly from China, Vietnam and Russia.

Noting that most of LAB’s non-EU students have decided to stay in Finland while some have gone, Kilpelainen expressed his particular concern that their residence permits will expire during the home leave.

The process of filing new residence permit applications, he said, will not be possible, as the Finnish Foreign Ministry closed their consular services in late March following the COVID-19 epidemic and the reopening date has yet to be announced.

“This means a return to Finland would be extremely difficult for the time being,” Kilpelainen told the USU.

The institutions were not fully aware of the situation of the foreign students, indicated a survey by the National Education Agency in late April, noting that problems in housing and livelihood could emerge at the end of the spring semester.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad on Tuesday highlighted the necessity to include Chinese among the foreign languages taught by different educational platforms in this North African nation.

Attending the inauguration ceremony of a new TV channel named El Maarifa (knowledge), which is dedicated to offering distance learning, Djerad recommended teaching the Chinese language in the programs of this channel.

“In addition to Arabic and French, I recommend to add English, and Chinese in particular, in the learning programs,” Djerad said.

“China is a world leading nation in the high tech sector, hence it’s necessary for us to master the Chinese language, in a bid to learn more about this far away civilization, and thus reinforcing our strong bilateral relations,” he said.

The new channel, the first of its kind, will provide distance learning content to Algerian students at all levels and all specialties, including those preparing for final exams.

The company priced its initial public offering (IPO) of 1,333,333 ordinary shares at 6 U.S. dollars per share, before underwriting discounts and offering expenses, resulting in gross proceeds of 8 million dollars, according to a company statement.

The offering is conducted on a firm commitment basis and expected to close on May 12, subject to customary closing conditions.

It also granted Boustead Securities, the sole underwriter for the offering, a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 200,000 ordinary shares at the IPO price to cover over-allotments, if any. Zinvest Global in Hong Kong serves as the Asian bookrunner.

Founded in 2011, the Beijing-based company provides a wide range of services, including those under Sino-foreign jointly managed academic programs; overseas study consulting services, and technological consulting services for Chinese universities.

Services for Sino-foreign jointly managed academic programs have been the main source of the company’s revenue, which generated 2,410,781 dollars for 2018, and 1.24 million dollars over the six months ending June 30, 2019, respectively representing 50.11 percent and 66 percent of net revenues for those periods, according to the company’s prospectus.

Ado said that having access to the websites would enable 9mobile customers and Nigerians remain connected and had more access to basic essential services which they required.

“Some of the pre-selected websites on this service include, educational sites such as Schoolgate, MobileClassroom in partnership with Federal Ministry of Education and National Open University, KhanAcademy and Seesaw.

“Also included are Health-related sites such as Mobihealth, World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria Health Watch, HealthLine and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC),” he said.

Ado noted that health and education were two out of the three pillars of 9mobile’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes.

He said the decision to focus on the two areas at this time was borne out of a desire to provide access to health and educational information and services, a critical requirement during the ongoing COVID-19pandemic.

“As a responsible organisation, we felt the need to support online learning as a result of the growing number of academic institutions during this period of lockdown,” Ado said.